


Just Tonight

by OrchisAilsa



Series: To the End of Time and Back [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Martha, Episode Related, Episode: s03e12 The Sound of Drums, Episode: s03e12-e13 The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Exhibitionism, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Missing Scene, Oral Sex, Other, POV Martha Jones, Porn with Feelings, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:03:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4073764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrchisAilsa/pseuds/OrchisAilsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scenes from "The Sound of Drums" and "The Last of the Time Lords." Martha gets an earful and then an eyeful as she witnesses the Doctor and Jack in a heated confrontation. Then, later, Martha implores the Doctor to live up to his name. So. Much Angst. You've been warned. Martha and Jack can be found next in my Torchwood story, "The End of the World Survivor's Club."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Martha laid underneath Jack's coat, and on top of her own, trying to get a little sleep before they had to go up against the Master.  
  
Sleep wasn't coming easy, especially not with Jack and the Doctor arguing less than fifteen yards away as they walked back into the cavernous warehouse.  
  
"All I'm sayin', Doctor, is that it would make you feel better."  
  
"Jack, that's ridiculous. And Martha Jones deserves more respect. I cannot even imagine that you would even insinuate-"  
  
"God dammit, Doctor. I wasn't talking about her."  
  
At the mention of her name Martha rolled over and began to pay attention. The two men looked at each other for a long minute and she could feel the electricity between them, even as far away as she was. What, exactly, had the Doctor believed Jack was insinuating?  
  
"It isn't fair for me to use you either," the Doctor whispered after a pregnant pause.  
  
"You aren't using me," Jack countered, "I know exactly what I'm signing up for."  
  
"Been with a lot of Time Lords, have you?" The Doctor challenged him with a stare of stone, but Jack glared back at him, defiant.  
  
Martha couldn't believe her ears. A flush rose in her cheeks as she wondered, _are they talking about... sex?_  
  
"I'm a big kid, Doc," Jack said, "and I know you think I'm a stupid, un-evolved primate or whatever... But even I know you're gonna waste away if you stay so bottled up, keep yourself so lonely and isolated. I'm your friend, you know. You can at least fucking talk to me, even if a warm touch is too barbaric for you. You need to talk to someone. Who do you talk to since you lost her, Doctor? How many years has it been, for you, since Canary Wharf?"  
  
And the Doctor, who was so much older, so much wiser, just sat paralyzed by his grief. He was shaking as he tried to speak.  
  
"I don't... I... I haven't... I can't..." His voice cracked, and he fell silent.  
  
And that was when Martha's heart broke. She could see that Jack felt the same- the miserable, shattered Doctor, feeling so lost and alone... The Master's appearance had stirred up a lot inside of him, opened wounds that he'd thought had finally started to heal. The sight of his internal struggle to maintain his composure was almost unbearable.  
  
"She... said she wouldn't leave, you know," he said with a tremor in his voice, "and I was so happy I almost believed her, even though i knew it was impossible. I knew time would take her; time takes everyone. But... I should have had her for years longer... She... You know, I never even told her? After Gallifrey... Before we met you in the Blitz... I was so, so broken. So angry. She taught me to be alive again. Stayed with me, even after the Game Station, even learned to trust a new man with a new face. And now... I just... I suppose I should be happy she's far, far from all of this, from the Master... But I cant help..."  
  
He trailed off, tight lipped, shaking his head as he clenched his fists in renewed, impotent rage.  
  
"Doctor," Jack whispered hoarsely, his voice full of pain and compassion. He reached out to embrace the other man. The doctor, though, flinched away and scowled at him.  
  
"You can't just fuck the pain away, Captain."  
  
"Have you ever tried?"  
  
The two men stared at each other for another long moment.  
  
And then the Doctor broke. He flew at Jack, grabbing him with a hand in his hair and the other around his throat. Martha clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a shocked gasp.  
  
"Do you like this, Jack? Is this what you want?"  
  
"I can think of worse ways to spend an hour or three," Jack replied, remarkably articulate for the position he was in.  
  
The Doctor laughed mirthlessly, leaning in close, as though for a kiss, but then just as quickly pulling away, staring into Jack's eyes, holding him close but denying the sensual contact he obviously craved.  
  
Martha was now ogling the two men shamelessly from her makeshift bed, and her insides pooled like molten lava the first time Jack moaned, writhing to rut against the Doctor's hips with his own in frustration, straining against the smaller man's deceptively powerful grip.  
  
"You know it can't last, Jack. I can't stay... And you, immortal man, you... feel so, so wrong, and it gives me a chill. I don't know if we could both even stay on the TARDIS without going mad. What if I cant take it? What if the TARDIS can't? what if it's only tonight?" the Doctor nipped at Jack's collarbone between words.  
  
"Well, then that's how it is," Jack replied softly, suddenly much, much less composed than before.  
  
Another heated pause.  
  
"What do you get out of this, Captain? Why the fuck do you care so much? I left you. If I were you... I'd hate me," the Doctor hissed.  
  
Martha didn't think she'd ever heard him swear like this before.  
  
"'Tis better to have loved and lost..."  
  
"Ha!" the Doctor interrupted, bitterly. "Clearly you're not so familiar with love, then."  
  
Jack went still and stiff and his voice, when he spoke, was icy.  
  
"Don't you ever presume to know how i feel about you or anyone else. I've had about a hundred and fifty years to figure it out. After you ditched me. Alone. Never aging, watching friends grow old and die. Watching my children get old and hate me. Living through a few of the most primitive, repressive decades in human history- bit of a culture shock for someone from my background.  
  
"I've been around the block, Doctor. I understand, and I care about you, you daft old fool!" he shouted. "I want to help you if I can. If we have one night to help heal these old wounds in both of us, in my book that's still better than nothing. And it's not like I'm not hurting too, you asshole."  
  
"What makes you think your pain and mine are even remotely comparable?" the Doctor challenged, as all trace of his normal empathy vanished, and Martha saw for the first time the raw, biting isolation behind the Doctor's warm, clever eyes. Time Lord. Last of his race. Alone. Extinct. Freakish.  
  
Jack glared at him, unmoved. "For starters, because you're not the only fucking person in this galaxy who loved her."  
  
The Doctor dropped his hands and stumbled back as if Jack had burned him. They stood there for a moment, brown eyes locked with blue, the Doctor frozen again.  
  
Jack sighed heavily.  
  
"I know, Doc. I know you were in love with her. It was obvious. And, god, did she love you back. And I am sure that wherever she is now... I... She..." he faltered, then spoke agin, more gently. "I can see this eating you up inside. The Master, the only relic of your own history and you have to try and take him down... have to be alone again. You never thought you'd have to go up against another Time Lord again, did you? And Rose..." his voice cracked on her name. "She wouldn't want this. Not for you."  
  
_Rose_ , Martha thought, with much less bitterness than usual,  _it always comes back to Rose..._  
  
"Don't you say her name." the Doctor hissed, shoving Jack hard enough that the larger man stumbled back and faltered, dropping to his knees.  
  
They stared at each other for a long, tense eternity. Martha gazed at both of them in profile... The tension between them was giving her shivers. The Doctor was standing over Jack imperiously, yet looking for all the world as though he was about to turn and run from the larger man.  
  
And in a moment Martha realized why, as Jack took a deep breath and started crawling on hands and knees towards the Doctor, never once breaking eye contact.  
  
"What are you doing?" the Doctor hissed, as Jack ran his palms up the Doctor's legs. Slowly. Tentatively.  
  
"Touching you," Jack replied in a voice half an octave lower than normal, as his fingers raked over the Doctor's hips, growing in confidence as he realized the Doctor wasn't going to stop him.  
  
"Why?" rasped the Doctor as Jack slid open his belt buckle.  
  
"Because you're letting me." 

Next came the button and zipper.

"This is a bad idea, Jack." The words held more conviction than the tone. the captain reached his warm, calloused hand into the Doctor's trousers.

"The worst idea," Jack agreed, But by then he had freed the Doctor's hard, flushed cock, and his eyes were gleaming with hunger. As he licked his lips, another lightning bright flash of arousal stabbed Martha in the pit of her stomach. Was Jack about to-

And he did. He swallowed the Doctor's beautiful cock deep into the back of his throat and groaned like a man in the desert who had been given a glass of ice water.

Martha didn't think she'd ever seen a sight so erotic. Clearly the Doctor felt similarly, as he abruptly cut off all argument in favor of gasping Jack's name and burying his fingers in his silky, dark hair.

"Jack, he whispered one last time, "You don't have to do this. You don't need to... Service me... like that."

Jack pulled back slowly from the Doctor's cock and met his eyes, pumping the glistening shaft with his right fist slowly as he spoke, "Oh, Doctor I do need to. I have been waiting 150 years to taste you, to hear you say my name like that. Tomorrow, who knows what's going to happen? Who knows if we'll ever meet again? I have never in my life dreamed and wished about someone as much as I dream about you so don't you tell me what I need."

And then he went back to lavishing attention on the Doctor's body, licking, sucking, nibbling the swollen flesh with passion, utter focus, and a hint of reverence.

Martha didn't know who she was more jealous of: Jack, with his mouth wrapped around the Doctor's cock, acting out her filthiest fantasies, or the Doctor himself, gasping and moaning on the receiving end of what looked to be the hottest and most passionate oral sex shed ever seen. Either way, she was feeling more and more flushed, and she squirmed under Jack's heavy coat.

"Jack, you have to stop."

"I said, don't tell me what I have to do," Jack gasped quickly before swallowing the other man's cock again.

The Doctor grabbed a fistful of Jack's hair and forcefully pulled him back, restraining him as he hissed, "You misunderstand, lad," in a voice Martha couldn't know was an echo of his former self, of Jack's Doctor. "I mean, you stop right now or I'm going to cum down your fucking throat before I get the chance to feel this prick buried inside that hot American ass of yours."

Martha never thought she would ever hear such obscenities from the Doctor, and she could see Jack hadn't either. He stopped cold when the Doctor released his hair, rocking back on his heels and gazing up shock, eyes so dark with lust that Martha could see the change in color from as far away as she was.

At the sight of Jack's swollen lips, glistening with saliva, pulling away from the Doctor's gorgeous, rock-hard member, Martha's restraint dissolved. Unbuttoning her jeans and gripping her chest trough her shirt she tried to relieve some o the tension, running her hands over her tight, quivering body.

The Doctor knelt and undid the buttons on Jack's shirt, revealing the captain's gorgeous, tanned torso before catching his chin with a finger and quietly asking, "Jack...are you sure? Once we start... For me this means abandoning my civility... Time Lords don't have customs or rules for how to do this... The act is avoided, uncivilized and all. And when I do indulge I tend to get savage. I don't want regrets..."

Jack held his gaze in silence and unbuttoned his trousers, freeing a thick cock as dark and gorgeous as the rest of him, jutting forward from a neatly trimmed patch of hair.

Slowly, deliberately, he took the doctor's hand and wrapped it around the base. He gasped at the contact, and the doctor groaned aloud as jack said, "Does it seem to you that I'm unsure, Doctor? I've been waiting a hundred and fifty years to dance with you. You... Know me. You know who i am, as well as i do. And you might be the only one left who does. And I know you. At least a little, I do. Can we not be this, to each other, even just tonight?"

The Doctor looked at him with appraising eyes. "I really must stop underestimating you, Captain Harkness."

His tone was unexpectedly gentle, and then he leaned forward, brushing his lips against Jack's. The Captain's voice caught in his throat. The Doctor kissed him again, still barely more than just a feather touch. Jack held still as if he was afraid of spooking him, like a wild animal, and perhaps he had the right idea because the Doctor looked positively feral as he leaned forward and said, in a low, dangerous voice.

"Strip. hands and knees. Now."

Jack went immediately to obey, stopping only to fish a small bottle of lubricant out of the front pocket of his trousers as he discarded them.

The Doctor took it with a dark smile as he knelt, leaned forward, and buried his fist in Jack's hair, turning his head up and claiming his mouth in one fierce, brutal kiss, biting at Jack's lips so that his moans of pleasure were peppered with gasps of pain. As one cool, deft hand glided down Jack's spine and spread his gorgeously toned ass to start applying the lube and working a finger into his waiting hole, Jack cried out in pleasure.

An echoing whimper escaped Martha's lips as she watched, riveted.

Much to her distress, Jack's eyes snapped up at the noise, and his passion-darkened eyes met hers. She froze in horror as he took in the sight of her, laid out on their overcoats with one hand gripping her breast and the other playing with the elastic of her knickers inside her unbuttoned jeans.

The Doctor, too involved in preparing jack to be fucked to focus on anything else, must not have heard her, because the next thing that happened was Jack's ecstatic outcry as the Doctor breached him with a second finger.

Martha gasped as a hot, wet, wave of arousal soaked her knickers. Jack smirked.

"Oh, Jack," purred the Doctor, "you have no idea what a beautiful sight this is."

Jack's eyes roved over Martha's body as he rocked back eagerly against the Doctor's hand.

"Fucking gorgeous." he replied, holding her gaze as he winked. He was talking about her, she realized. He wasn't upset at her watching... Quite the opposite, it seemed. The thought gave her confidence. It also turned her on.

Feeling scandalous and wanton, she gripped her breast harder, rolling her head back in a silent moan as she arched slightly into her own touch.

Jack smiled appreciatively and nodded his approval, and so she grew bolder, running her hands over her body, putting on a show for him.

She pinched her nipples and squeezed her breasts hard enough to leave marks, grazing her skin with her fingernails as she made her way down to her waistband with her trembling fingers. Jack nodded his approval as she dipped one hand inside her knickers, tangling her fingers within the short, well-trimmed thatch of hair that grew there. Jack licked his lips, which made something flutter low in her belly. She was reeling with how surreal it all was.

With a feral growl the Doctor pressed a third finger into Jack, clearly a few minutes before he was ready.

"Doctor!" he cried out, a flash of pain crossing his face before it melted back into an expression of feverish pleasure. "Don't stop."

"Wasn't planning to. It's a greedy little hole, isn't it?" murmured the Doctor, working Jack with his left hand while he brought his right up to stroke himself, smearing a bead of pre-cum over the pale, taut head of his prick so that it shone in the dim industrial lighting overhead.

Martha gasped and wriggled her jeans down her hips a little, to have better access to contend with the ache between her thighs.

"More," Jack whimpered, to both of them.

Martha held his gaze, breathless as she slid her jeans down to her knees and pulled her shirt up to reveal the golden brown expanse of her soft, lean belly and hips. then she hooked her fingers in her knickers and hauled them down as well, gasping at the feel of the cool, spring air against the most sensitized parts of her. Slowly, deliberately, she ran her right hand down the front of her body, dipping two fingers into the hot, wet heat there, holding Jack's passion-darkened gaze the entire time. She had never experienced anything so sexy in her life.

The Doctor pulled back his hand suddenly from Jack's ass, causing Jack to close his eyes and whimper at the deprivation.

The Doctor fisted a hand in Jack's hair, pulling his head up so that his back arched at a painful looking angle, and Martha could see his neglected, iron-hard cock straining in front of him. The sudden urge to touch, to taste, to fuck this mysterious stranger who had know the Doctor in another life hit her like a tidal wave and, unable to move or act, her fingers pressed a little harder into the soaking heat of her own center.

"What do you want?" the Doctor hissed softly.

"You," Jack gasped.

The Doctor slapped his ass once, hard.

"Be more specific."

Jack's eyes flashed at the admonishment and when he spoke it was in a low growl.

"I want you to fuck me until I won't walk straight for weeks, Doctor. I want your cock buried so far inside me I have bruises on my thighs from your hips, and I want you to let. This. Pain. Go."

As Jack uttered this last sentiment he strained against the Doctor's grip on his hair enough to turn and meet the smaller man's gaze. For just a moment the storm in the Doctor's eyes subsided, replaced by a look of respect, wonder, and even a little tenderness.

Slowly, he leaned over Jack's shoulder to give him a soft kiss on the lips that might have looked downright chaste, in another context. Jack sighed.

"You've changed," the Doctor observed.

"You once gave me a chance. Seemed stupid to waste it."

They looked at each other for a few beats before Jack turned his face away, blushing.

"Doctor," he begged, the reverence of the moment broken, "Please. Please, fuck me. now. Hard. Please."

The supplication in his tone seemed so at odds with Jack's commanding strength, Martha's heart fluttered at the sound.

The Doctor himself was not unmoved, and kissed him again as he went to comply.

"Thank you for giving me this," he said, finally lining his cock up against Jack's entrance. Slowly, relentlessly, he pressed forward into Jack whose head was thrown back in a Silent cry of ecstasy.

Martha's own arousal spiked to a new level at the sight. Then it seemed that for a moment time froze as both men stopped moving, talking, even breathing, to adjust to the new onslaught of sensation.

"Oh god, yes," Jack moaned at last, sinking forward on his arms to rest his head against the cold concrete of the ground. At the same moment the Doctor let out a string of what seemed like expletives, but in a language that she had never heard.

They began to move slowly, as one, pushing and pulling against each other, both of them glowing with a light sheen of perspiration at the effort. It looked incredible.

Martha's fingers slid against her skin, slick with her arousal, and the sensation of her own touch coupled with the wanton display before her sent twinges of pleasure through her, signaling the approach of her orgasm.

Faster now, they were moving faster. The Doctor paid no mind to Jack's comfort and it seemed jack liked it that way. He braced himself on one arm, muscles tight and corded, against the Doctor's onslaught, while the other shaking hand found his own cock, glistening with rivulets of pre-cum, and gripped it, attempting to gain relief from the aching pressure of his arousal.

"Oh, yes, Doctor," Jack whimpered, his voice feverish with lust and passion, "Yes. Yes. Yes. Just like that."

The Doctor made a strangled noise in response to the encouragement, gripping Jack's hips hard enough to turn his knuckles white as he pounded into him, all control lost in the fire of the moment.

"Oh, God, Yes. Harder," jack murmured in a broken voice. Oh god, Doctor, you beautiful creature, you have no idea how long I've wanted this. I want to feel you cum. I want you to cum for me now. Cum hard for me, please, and I want to feel you inside me when you do. And, oh God. Soon. Soon. I'm so close."

She was tumbling, careening forward towards the oblivion of release. As she watched the two men straining together, somehow both violent and tender at once, Martha began to come unravelled. Any moment now... Any second. She felt the pressure growing and building low in her belly as Jack babbled on the verge of incoherence. But there was nothing incoherent about the moment he raised his eyes once more to hers, and with all of the fevered passion she could read in his eyes, he whispered, "Cum with me."

Martha nodded, breath coming in gasps as she shivered in pleasure, trying to hold on.

"Jack," the Doctor cried out, "Jack, oh my-" and then went absolutely rigid and silent as his climax tore through him, white-knuckled hands gouging bruises into Jack's tanned flesh as he quivered with the force of it.

Jack groaned in pleasure and pain as he pumped his cock frantically, before hissing out a breathless, "Now. Now. Now."

At the sight of the cum spilling in pulsing jets over Jack's fingers, falling in opalescent splatters on the cold, grey pavement, Martha shattered. Almost in pain from the effort of keeping herself silent, she convulsed against her hand, trembling as wave after wave of sensation washed over her. She saw Jack's tired smile of appreciation as the last trembling aftershocks washed over her, and closed her eyes, overwhelmed, trying to catch her breath and come back to herself.

 

* * *

  
When she opened her eyes the doctor was gone. Jack, who was moving gingerly because of his aching muscles, was beginning to pull his clothes together. He'd donned his trousers and had his button down thrown over one shoulder.

"You're hurt," she called out to him, noticing the slight limp.

"I'll be fine in the morning," Jack called back, sounding sated and exhausted.

He looked up at her again and his eyes were unbearably sad. She held out her arm to him, beckoning him over.

"He should have stayed to take care of you," she muttered, as Jack laid down next to her on the pile of coats. This close she could see that his whole body was shaking.

Jack shook his head. "He takes care of everyone else all the time. Sometimes someone needs to return the favor."

"Selfless of you, jumping on that grenade for all of us," she deadpanned with a wry smile.

Jack laughed and some of the tension left his body. She relaxed then, and allowed her mind to wander over the scene that had just taken place.

"Jack," she said softly, "I want to say thank y-"

He silenced her by pulling her into a long, languid kiss. Martha yielded immediately, melting into the sensations of his mouth moving against hers, tasting of coffee and salt and... Heat surged through her again as she realized the foreign yet familiarly masculine taste that was dominating his mouth must be the flavor of the Doctor's cock.

"Martha Jones, you are magnificent," he took her hand and rolled her fingers under his tongue, tasting her where she'd been touching herself. "Fan-tas-tic." he added with warm appreciation.

She kissed him again before she rolled over and permitted him to pull her back against the comforting warmth of his chest. Drowsiness started to claim her.

"Who was Rose, really?" she murmured, stifling a yawn. "He never says."

Jack stiffened for a second before sighing deeply and pulling Martha closer.

"Has the doctor ever told you about the Time War?"

"Bits here and there."

"Genocide. Two races essentially extinct. And he's the one that had to push the button. He destroyed his own planet, to save the universe. Everyone on it. Every living thing. Had no choice..."

"My god," she breathed.

"Rose... He met Rose after that. He was broken. Lost. Numb. She... Taught him how to live again. The Doctor... He saves reality every day. Rose... She saved the Doctor."

"He loved her."

"Loves. Yes. Immeasurably. Still."

"But she left..."

"She was taken." he said, his voice clipped and cold, "and is now locked away forever somewhere that even the TARDIS can't reach."

"And you?"

"I knew her. I loved her too, in my way. I understand his loss, and I want him to know that he is not ever truly alone, as long as I live and breathe."

"You love him."

"So do you."

"But he doesn't love us."

"Not like that."

"Then, why are we here?"

She rolled over and met his eyes when no quick response came.

"Martha Jones..." Jack sighed, with a smile. "don't ask stupid questions."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During The Last of the Time Lords, our trio has a lot of healing to do.

Martha and Jack huddled together on the floor in the newly repaired console room, waiting for him to get back.  
  
Jack rested wearily with his head on her shoulder, and she was pained to feel that his entire body trembled whenever he managed to drift off to sleep.  
  
Martha had spent a year wandering the Earth, lonely and afraid, but she was certain her own experiences paled in comparison to what Jack had suffered at the Master's hands. She couldn't even begin to wrap her mind around what he had been through.  
  
The Master hadn't deserved a funeral, as far as Martha was concerned. She had seen what he had done to her family. She had seen Jack when they finally cut him free of his restraints. She already knew some the nightmares they had all been forced to endure as his prisoners, the nightmares that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.  
  
But still the Doctor mourned him, that monster, and had seen fit to build him a funeral pyre. He told her that burning was one of the better ways to prevent regeneration, but his face had grown distant when she had sneered and told him to throw the corpse in the bonfires with the other garbage and wreckage. They hadn't spoken much since then.  
  
The TARDIS door opened quietly. The Doctor entered, and he reeked of the funeral pyre. Of the Master.  
  
Jack turned his face into Martha's shoulder in his semi-consciousness, presumably shielding himself from the sight and smell of the Doctor. Martha's heart swelled with sympathy.  
  
"Why don't you go to your bedroom," she whispered softly, shaking him awake. She ached at the feeling of him tensing up against her. "Don't worry, I'll be there soon," she promised. "You don't have to sleep alone tonight. I just need to speak to the Doctor about something before I come join you."  
  
Wearily, wordlessly, Jack dragged himself to his feet and complied without meeting her eyes.  
  
Martha and the Doctor both watched him leave, standing in tense silence.  
  
"Hello," the Doctor greeted her in a dry, hollow tone.  
  
"Welcome back," she replied coldly once Jack's retreating footsteps had gone far enough away that he probably couldn't hear her.  
  
"We'll have to stay here tonight," the Doctor explained tiredly, ignoring or not noticing the harshness of her tone and coming to stand by the TARDIS console. "She's still repairing herself. She can't spare the energy to take off now."   
  
Martha nodded tensely, trying to hold in her anger. Was he really going to say nothing more? Do nothing more?  
  
They stared at each other for a moment.  
  
"What is it that you want from me, Martha?" he finally asked, terse and icy.  
  
Something inside of her cracked.  
  
"Help him!" Martha ordered, her voice ringing louder than she intended as she pointed at the door through which Jack had gone, her temper flaring at the cold in his voice. "Now that you're done performing funeral rites for his bloody torturer, I mean. Help him. Jack is still alive, because he doesn't have a choice, but he's broken. He is not okay. And he needs you."  
  
"Me?" the Doctor laughed harshly as he whispered in apparent disbelief. He ran both hands through his hair and stared at her.  
  
"Yes, you!" she hissed in reply. "He hangs on your every word and deed, just like the rest of us, Doctor. He loves you. And you called him "wrong," and "unnatural." And then he was tortured by that unhinged maniac for a year! He needs your help, your ... benediction, or whatever. He needs to heal. And you need to help him before he goes completely mad from the trauma."  
  
When the Doctor just stared stonily at her, she added, "It's what he would have done for you. It's what he did do for you, once."  
  
The Doctor's expression flickered briefly to one of alarm before his stone mask slid back into place. He clearly never realized that she knew what had happened between him and Jack the night all of this began.  
  
Martha shook her head at him, feeling slightly disgusted.  
  
"You can save our entire planet but you can't help one wounded friend. Ha. You call yourself Doctor. Well, I don't know about the rest of the naïve people you travel with, but I actually know what that title means -- the promise it entails. And today you still need to earn it. Your job here is not done."  
  
The Doctor turned away from her, gripping the console tightly, still silent.  
  
Red hot rage flared again in Martha's chest. How could he be so cold?  
  
"What would your precious Rose say," she sneered before she could stop herself, "if she were here to see you right now?"  
  
That got a reaction. The Doctor spun on his heel, glaring at her through narrowed eyes.  
  
"Get. Out." He growled.  
  
"I was just leaving." Martha spat out her words in disgust. "I have a patient who needs tending." Then she stormed out of the console room and towards Jack, trying to calm herself before he saw her. It wouldn't do to have him anxious on her behalf.  
  
"I want to go home," she whispered desperately to the dark, coming to stop in front of the door and wearily resting her head against the wall.  
  
And that, she would later realize, is the moment she began to fall out of love with the Doctor.  
  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  
She always did know he would eventually come around.  
  
The knock on the door was quiet, almost timid. Martha, who was spooned tightly against Jack's back, holding him close so that he could sleep with fewer nightmares, raised her head off of the pillow to greet him as he entered.  
  
"Hello," he murmured awkwardly.  
  
"Hello," she replied in kind. She was much calmer now, despite her anger, but she wasn't going to pave the way for his comfort. He needed to find the right words to say on his own, if he wanted to make amends with her... and the right actions.  
  
He came to sit down gingerly on the edge of the bed.  
  
"It's been... hell... for me too," he whispered, hoarse. "You know that, right?"  
  
Despite her anger, her heart ached for him in that moment. Of course she knew he was in pain. She'd never questioned it. She just couldn't sit and watch it consume him while they needed him so badly.  
  
"I know you're hurting, Doctor," she assured him, taking care to use a gentle, low tone. "I've never denied it. But the thing is, if we can't be here for each other... Who, exactly, will? You're in pain, but so are we. We need you. He needs you. No one else on Earth even remembers the horrible things that made us hurt like this. You can't just.. Withdraw... Or run away... You're all we have."  
  
She tried to swallow her own sadness at all of the people she'd met who wouldn't remember her. Of Tom Mulligan and his sparkling eyes.  
  
The Doctor nodded wearily, and for the first time ever Martha felt as though he looked his age. "You're right, Doctor Jones," he conceded after another long moment of silence. "As usual."  
  
"So you will help him?"  
  
"I'll do what I can. But... I can't... It can only be for tonight," he said. "Tomorrow he'll have to go back to Torchwood. To the life he's built there. The TARDIS doesn't like him anymore. He really does feel... wrong. I wasn't saying that to be spiteful."  
  
"Just for tonight," Martha affirmed, feeling the knots in her shoulders relax just a little. It would have to be enough.  
  
He came to lay down on the other side of Jack, face to face. Martha remained pressed up against her friend's back, holding him protectively.  
  
"Contact," the Doctor whispered, forging a mental link with Jack.  
  
Martha didn't know how long they laid there, foreheads almost touching in the dark room, with the Doctor's long fingers brushing Jack's temples. It must have been about fifteen minutes. Perhaps half an hour? She spent the time focused on Jack's slightly erratic breathing, and studying the Doctor's face.  
  
He was so rarely still, and she hadn't really seen him take so much as a cat nap, not even when they had shared a room back on their first adventure to Elizabethan times. She enjoyed taking the time to study the angular planes of his cheekbones and jaw and the freckles that faintly adorned his cheeks.  
  
He just looks like a man, she thought absurdly. Long lived, sure, and brilliant, but just a man. How can one man handle so much?  
  
That was the real magic of the Doctor, she decided. To take the universe on his shoulders, and to bend but never break.  
  
She was pulled out of her thoughts by the Doctor's movement. When he opened his eyes they were full of tears. Jack's pain.  
  
She looked at him and smiled sadly, and reached out to brush a tear off of his cheek.  
  
Afterwards, Jack fell deeply asleep. He stopped shaking, and his breathing evened out. Martha sighed in relief, tears of her own stinging her eyes.  
  
"I couldn't take away everything," the Doctor told her. "Not without damaging his mind. I just toned down the very worst of it. It should help him keep his sanity."  
  
Well, it was something. And more importantly, he had tried. He hadn't given up on Jack, or on her. He was still the Doctor. He wasn't too broken to bounce back.  
  
"Thank you, Doctor," Martha whispered.  
  
He leaned over and kissed her forehead.  
  
"Thank you, Martha Jones. For keeping me honest."  
  
She smiled at him, a tired, sad smile, and kissed him on the cheek.  
  
Then they laid down, exhausted, on either side of Jack, and quickly drifted off to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was only ever meant to be a one-shot, and it was for a long time -- but then after three years this angst-ridden chapter happened to me. The relationships between these three are just so complex and interesting, I can't manage to leave them alone.
> 
> There will be one more chapter, to settle some of these emotions and round off the story in a happier (smuttier) way. Jack and Martha and the Doctor are all quite cheery at the end of The Last of the Time Lords... I promise to get them to that point in much the same condition. ;-)


	3. Chapter 3

She awoke to the sound of their hushed voices.  
  
"Come on, Doctor," she heard Jack murmur, his voice gravelly with sleep and the remnants of his ordeal, "just for one night."  
  
"There's no night in the TARDIS," the Doctor replied evasively, as though he didn't constantly use the word "night" himself when talking to them. Not a very strong argument, that. Whatever discussion they were having, it seemed that Jack was winning.  
  
Both men sounded amused, at least. That was a good sign.  
  
"All the better," was Jack's blithe reply. "That means I can take my time."  
  
"Seriously, Jack, twelve hours ago you were on the verge of-- well..."  
  
"The verge of death, Doctor? No, I think not." Jack's voice faltered, lost some of it's brightness, just for a moment.  
  
"You were in a bad way, Jack. You need rest. You need to relax. You almost certainly need a therapist to deal with the stress of the traumas you've endured. How can you possibly want --"  
  
"You asked if there was anything you could offer me that would make me feel better," Jack stated plainly. "You can't fault me for being honest."  
  
There was a pregnant silence. Martha bit her lips to keep from laughing. Was this what it sounded like? Was Jack actually propositioning the Doctor right now?  
  
"You're actually serious," the Doctor laughed nervously, confirming her suspicions. "Jack, we can't... I mean -- Martha is trying to sleep right here."  
  
She opened her eyes a sliver at the sound of her name. Jack still looked a bit weary, but he was smiling. He caught her eye and his smile widened just a bit before he turned his attention back to the Doctor, whom Jack was pinning to the mattress by his shoulders.  
  
Jack is feeling better, then. Thank God.  
  
The Doctor's trousers were wrinkled and he had his rumpled shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, buttons undone far enough for her to see the light shadow of his chest hair peeking out. His tie was nowhere in evidence and his hair was sticking out in far more directions than normal. Jack was straddling him, naked except for the pajama bottoms he had worn to bed. All remaining physical evidence of the torture he had endured had faded while he slept, and as the muscles in his back and shoulders moved his smooth skin glowed in the dim light. The pair of them together was a positively gorgeous sight.  
  
Jack had seen her stir, she knew, but when he looked down at the Doctor now, his eyes were full of false innocence. The cheeky bastard.  
  
"Oh, she's exhausted, Doctor. Don't worry about her. She'll probably sleep for hours." He made a dismissive hand gesture in her direction.  
  
She stifled another chuckle at his gall. But she'd play along with his game, for now, because it looked like she was in for quite a show.  
  
The Doctor muttered something insolent about primitive human apes and their base instincts, but even as he spoke he yielded, stopped straining against Jack's touch, and began to relax back into the pillow as he raised a hand gently to his friend's face.  
  
"It must be lonely for you, man out of time, trapped on Earth as you are, so far in the past. It's so primitive, compared to what you've known."  
  
Jack looked deep into the Doctor's eyes and shook his head, brushing the sympathetic hand away.  
  
"There isn't anything for me on Boeshane. I can't go back to the time I was born. The Time Agents can go fuck themselves. But on Earth, here, and now? It's simpler -- in a lot of good ways. And I have Ianto and Gwen and the others. I can sometimes actually help people. I --"  
  
As his voice started to grow thick, the Doctor moved his hand to place two fingers over Jack's mouth, silencing him with the gentlest touch Martha had ever seen him use.  
  
"I'm sorry I brought it up, Jack," he said with sad sincerity.  
  
"It's fine," Jack said with a deep sigh. "At least you can relate. You know, I may be older than you are at this point, Doctor."  
  
"That's why I worry. Your body isn't  meant to endure for so long -- even less so the mind. Neither is a Time Lord's, for that matter. That's why I regenerate. The strain on your human physiology over time must be--"  
  
"I rather enjoy straining my human physiology, Doctor," Jack changed the subject abruptly by leering lasciviously, raking his nails up the Doctor's sides as he spoke, then rolling his hips to punctuate his meaning. He was clearly done speaking about his unique condition.  
  
The Doctor laughed softly as his body arched in response to Jack's touch. "Okay, you single-minded primate. If you really think that ravishing a Time Lord will help your pain, far be it from me to--"  
  
He gasped as Jack leaned forward to bite playfully at his collarbone.  
  
"You talk too much, Doc."  
  
And without further ado, Jack began to kiss and nip his way down the other man's body, and the Doctor finally gave up on words for a few moments. From where she lay, Martha could see the tension begin to dissipate from the Doctor's shoulders as he allowed himself to surrender control and focus on the sensations Jack was making him feel.  
  
Despite Jack's impatient attitude a moment before, he seemed in no hurry now, and was taking his time to savor each taste as he made his way down the lean, muscular body to rest on his knees, straddling the Doctor's legs. He paused for a second with his ear to his chest, listening to the double heartbeat.  
  
The Doctor ran a hand through Jack's silky hair and hummed appreciatively.  
  
"You know you're really quite good at that," he murmured. "The kissing."  
  
Jack smiled and closed his eyes, check still against the Doctor's skin.  
  
"You don't have to sound so surprised," He murmured before continuing his exploration.  
  
"Time Lords didn't really touch each other," the Doctor murmured softly, babbling a little as Jack moved, kissing along his sternum and down the ridge of his lower ribs. "No sex, typically, as I assume you're at least cursorily aware -- not even for procreation, at least in the Citadel. Test tube babies, the lot of us. Sexual impulses were, as best, thought of as vestigial annoyances, to be mastered and overcome -- intimate touch was considered barbaric. They'd have institutionalized me if they could've see me now. But the stigma goes farther than that. Most of us were never held or kissed or anything of the sort after we'd been weaned. The physical form was always considered inferior, and all focus was to be on the mind. So even though I've clearly indulged a bit here and there, in a few bodies, this sort of thing still feels alien to me, after all this time... This closeness. I'm out of my depth here. But... It's nice."  
  
Martha's heart broke a little at the revelation. No wonder the Doctor seemed to relish each hug he gave them with such intensity. To share a joy or a pain with another in that way was something he had only come to know as an adult. What must it have been like to grow up so isolated? It sounded horrible.  
  
Jack's words echoed her feelings as he sat up and placed both palms against the Doctor's chest.  
  
"That sounds like the loneliest thing I've ever heard..."  
  
For a few moments they just laid together as Jack touched him, really touched him, running palms all over his exposed skin, lowering himself to cover the Doctor's body with his own, burying his face in the Doctor's shoulder as though he could wash away the loneliness with his own warmth. The Doctor gasped and moaned, allowing his arms to fold around Jack and pull him closer, drinking up the contact like a man dying of thirst.  
  
When Jack bit his neck gently the Doctor cried out, a soft and helpless sound. Jack responded with an appreciative hum as he pushed himself up on his elbows and gazed hungrily down at the man below him.  
  
This time it was the Doctor who moved, reaching up to take Jack's face in his hands, lifting his own head to bring their lips together.  
  
This kiss was soft, but with a more desperate edge. It was as though they had stopped teasing, and were both finally admitting how much they actually needed this moment. When they broke for air Jack's breathing was heavy and urgent, and the Doctor's cheeks were flushed.  
  
Sitting up, Jack undid the remaining buttons of the Doctor's shirt and bent almost reverently to kiss the hollow of his stomach below the ridge of his ribcage. Martha's mouth watered as as she saw him run his fingers thorough the faint line of hair that led temptingly from his navel to vanish beneath the waistband of his trousers.  
  
"Still... All things considered, Seems like you don't find it so bad, consorting with barbaric apes," Jack murmured, voice turning dark and thick with lust as he ran his palm against the bulge forming in the Doctor's trousers. "I guess it's fun to slum it with lower life forms sometimes, is that it?"  
  
The Doctor gulped a lung full of air. "Filthy habit, I know. Could be worse, though," he snarked, trying to appear less affected than he clearly was. "At least you know what you're doing. If I'm going to act like a retrograde deviant, I may as well do it with someone who knows how to handle such things properly..."  
  
"Is that a compliment, Doctor?" Jack quipped, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Oh, I'll handle you, all right."  
  
Martha, still playing at sleeping, stretched and discreetly turned her head to face them, wanting a better view for what she suspected was coming next.  
  
Jack didn't disappoint. He smirked up at the Doctor before finally opening his trousers, freeing his beautiful, swollen cock, flushed and dark against his pale belly.  
  
"Not bad for a vestigial annoyance..." Jack breathed appreciatively. Martha's mouth went dry and she felt a rush of warmth between her legs. She was suddenly burning with the desire to reach out and touch the Doctor, taste him, in a powerfully primal way. She wanted to sink down on him until he was buried inside her to the hilt. The force of her wanting took her breath away, for a moment. But she remained perfectly still, not wanting to break the magic of the moment. The agony of her inaction was sort of delicious, in its own way.  
  
"Beautiful," Jack breathed, pulling the Doctor's clothes off the rest of the way and tossing them carelessly to the side of the bed. Martha silently agreed. Naked and laid out in the dim light, the Doctor's lanky form had a delicate strength about it, like a dancer or a runner. Defined muscles recalled his active lifestyle, and his skin looked soft without appearing feminine. He was absolutely delicious.  
  
The Doctor gasped when Jack came to rest on his belly between his legs and suddenly took the entire length of that gorgeous cock into his mouth.  
  
"Oh my... Jack!"  
  
Jack hummed around him, sounding as though he was ecstatically savoring some rare delicacy on a foreign world. It seemed that the entirely of his consciousness had shrunk to a bubble containing just him and the Doctor. Martha wondered if he even remembered she was there.  
  
For a long time Jack laid there, worshiping the Doctor's body with his hands and tongue.  
  
He moved one fist up and down the length of him while gently cupping his testicles in the other hand, exerting just a tiny bit of soft pressure there as he pressed his own neglected cock against the bed with his hips, searching for any bit of friction to slake his thirst.  
  
Martha wanted to reach out and touch Jack, to run her hands over his beautiful body and feel the hot, solid weight of him against her palm. But she still held herself back, riveted as she greedily took in the sight.  
  
Jack eventually came up for air, but by then it was the Doctor who was gasping.  
  
"I want to fuck you, Doctor," Jack confessed through red, swollen lips, voice ragged. It sounded like a prayer.  
  
The Doctor's mouth opened and closed once before he finally managed to say, "Yes. Yes, please." 

 

He shifted the position of his legs, folding them up to give Jack better access to his body.

Martha felt another jolt of heat pool in her stomach and spread through her abdomen. Unable to stop herself she rolled closer to them, coming to rest about two feet away from the Doctor's lean form. She watched them hungrily as Jack slicked his hand up with lubricant from his bedside table and slid a practiced finger inside the Doctor, gently working him open while kissing and nipping along his hips.

The Doctor whimpers and moaned and let his head fall back against the pillows, awash in sensation, oblivious to Martha's nearness until his hand flexed, grabbing for contact, and he gasped in shock when hers came up to meet his with a firm, steady grip.

His hand was cooler than a human's, and she could feel him tremble.

"You're awake," he observed, looking charmingly embarrassed. Jack paused in his ministrations to look up and grin wickedly at them.

"You're too noisy," she replied mildly, her voice a low purr, "But I can certainly think of worse sights to wake up to..."

The Doctor made as if to reply, but his words were stolen from him as Jack pushed a second finger slowly inside.

"So there is a way to shut you up after all..." Jack teased.

The Doctor's hand tightened on hers as Jack fucked the Doctor with two fingers and then three, pulling out and pressing back in again, slow and steady. It was the hottest thing Martha had ever seen.

For a while they were all silent, except for the Doctor's incoherent gasps. Martha was captivated by the sight in front of her, of the Doctor coming apart piece by piece, decimated by the intensity of Jack's steady, reverent movements.

When he opened his eyes Jack met her gaze, and the intimacy that passed between them was breathtaking.

"Do you want to slide in here?" Jack asked suddenly, sitting up on his heels and gesturing towards the Doctor's straining, neglected cock as casually as if he was offering her tea. "What do you think, Doctor?"

The Doctor flushed deeper red and smiled up at her through his eyelashes. "Ladies choice," he murmured by way of consent.

Martha's mouth went dry again as she thought about what they were offering. Her mind was inundated with images of he own body writing under the Doctor's, that beautiful cock pushing into her with the force and rhythm of Jack's thrusts as he penetrated the Doctor from behind. Martha's cheeks flushed, and the warmth at her core became a sharp ache, throbbing with the sudden force of her desire.

But as suddenly as these images had flooded her imagination she found them replaced thoughts of Tom Mulligan and his soulful brown eyes... of her own justifiable rage from just a few hours before. And she realized that she couldn't do it. She'd just mustered the will to leave. She knew herself -- she couldn't do this thing and still mange to walk away.

But maybe they could meet somewhere in the middle?

"I want to," she told them both. "But not... I can't... No penetration. It's too much."

Jack nodded his understanding and smiled. "I think we can work with that. Why don't you take off those pajama bottoms, then go lean back above him, by the head board? Doctor, get on your hands and knees between her legs."

She moved into place against a fluffy pillow, stripping down to simple tank top and thin, cotton panties. The Doctor also did as he was asked, coming to kneel between her legs and smiling shyly at her.

"This okay?" He asked softly.

Martha, not trusting her voice, smiled and nodded back at him.  
 _  
_ _How is this my life?_ She asked herself as the Doctor folded forward to rest his head on her chest, draping his arms lightly around her. 

 

This was harder to wrap her head around, in its own way, than Daleks and the Master and resetting the Earth's time lines with a frenzied prayer. Martha reacted instinctively to the embrace, bringing one arm up to wrap around his shoulders while the other tangled in his hair. The heat of his skin and the firmness of the muscles beneath was absolutely delicious.

Jack beamed at her from the foot of the bed.

"Beautiful," he breathed, caressing his swollen cock with a lube-slicked hand.

He moved into position behind the Doctor, nudging Martha's legs farther apart to slide between them and the Doctor's knees. He urged the Doctor wordlessly to raise his hips higher, and Martha lay transfixed by the intensity of his crystal blue gaze as he positioned his cock and slowly began to push himself inside.

Jack smelled amazing -- dizzyingly good. Martha realized with amusement, as he leaned in closer, that she was drunk on his 50th century pheromones.

Jack looked like he was drunk himself as he pressed forward slowly into the heat of the Doctor's body. The Doctor, meanwhile, clung to Martha as though she were his lifeline, his arms around her tightening as he gasped in pleasure and discomfort, trying desperately to hold his hips high despite the trembling in his legs.

"Jack...." He choked out helplessly.

"Oh, Doctor," Jack replied, his voice thick with lust. "You feel... just unbelievably amazing."

Martha thought she might die from the amount of desire and emotion saturating the room around them. Jack's words stoked the heat within her and her core ached, wanting desperately to be filled and damn the cost of her actions.

She found that she was clinging to the Doctor now as hard as he was holding her, as they both tried to prepare themselves for what was to come.

Martha raised her eyes to Jack's and found she was mesmerized by them - over large pupils ringed in cerulean blue that seemed impossibly darker than they had been a half hour ago.

"Do it," Martha commanded with a rough, breathy moan.

Jack gave her a warm, knowing smile and a wink. Then, taking the Doctor's hips in both of his hands, slowly began to move.

The pace was slow and steady, and she felt herself succumb to the rolling, erotic rhythm.

After a few long, sensuous moments Jack shifted, allowing his body to fold forward over the Doctor's and gripping the head board behind Martha's head with one hand.

The new angle was deeper, Jack's thrusts were harder. Even if she couldn't have felt it through the Doctor's body, the white knuckled grip he had on her shoulders would have been enough for her to understand. And when Jack's cock found a place within that caused his spine to arch and his arms tremble, the Doctor gasped what sounded like a prayer into the hollow of her throat.

Martha's body soared with the sensations -- the weight of the two men above her, the relentless rhythm and heat of their movements. She felt like she was on drugs, her whole world reduced to the pulsating ebb and flow of Jack's movements and the soft descant of the Doctor's breathy moans. Her core was throbbing, protesting her decision to abstain from a more intimate embrace. She could feel the pooling wet heat of her own arousal slick against her thighs.

Before long, the Doctor was squirming beneath them breathlessly, murmuring incoherently in a language the TARDIS didn't care to translate. His hips canted forward in desperation.

"Uh-uh, Doctor," Jack warned him, "Not yet. Her before you. She deserves it."

Why was he denying the Doctor? She herself had decided that penetrative sex would be too much, too close to the thing she so desperately wanted but could never truly have.  But she couldn't argue that the idea was intoxicatingly hot. The Doctor's taut body above her, seeking friction, desperate for relief but frantically trying to hold on until Jack gave him permission to let go.

She locked eyes with Jack, who locked his lips as he slowed the motion of his hips to a maddeningly gentle pace. The Doctor keened desperately between them.

"Show us what you like, Martha," Jack requested in a thick, heavy voice. "Tonight is for you too. Whatever you need."

Martha slid an arm from around the Doctor's shoulders, feeling absurdly self conscious considering what was happening between them. With a shaking hand she guided her fingers to her core.

The Doctor ran his hands up and down the sides of her body, making her shiver in pleasure as they made cool contact with her skin.

Her fingers felt like ice against the heat of her own skin, and as they trailed against the dripping heat of her vulva she gasped, burying her face in the Doctor's neck.

He moved his arms to hold her tight around the ribs, murmuring soft encouragements into her hair, broken only by his own gasps as Jack's thrusts grew rougher and hungrier.

"Good God," Jack exclaimed in a ragged voice. "You're both so fucking beautiful. It's just... Incredible. I can't-- Martha baby tell us what you need--"

The desperation in his voice was her undoing. The orgasm hit her like a truck, ripping a scream from her throat she barely recognized as her own as her world dissolved into nothing more than a wave of overwhelming sensation.

She arched up against the Doctor, collapsing against the head board as his own back arched and he cried out in a language she didn't know. She felt the heat of his climax splatter against her bare thighs and cried out again at the sensation. Jack followed them moments later, his thrusts growing more and more erratic until he froze with a silent gasp, gripping the headboard with white knuckles as he trembled above them.

  
They fell away from each other, breathing hard, Jack to one side and the Doctor to the other, leaving Martha lying between them, unable to think about anything at all but the glorious sense of peace she felt for the first time in almost a year.

_I'm going to be okay,_ she realized suddenly.

And then for a few minutes, there was nothing. And she slept.

* * *

The Doctor was watching her when she came back to reality, looking at her like a beautiful rare bird or a supernova.

"Human beings really are quite brilliant, aren't they?"

She rolled to face him, making a face as she realized that she was still covered in their mingled fluids.

"Never have gotten used to the mess. Horrifically inefficient manner of reproduction," he teased.

"Just means we get more practice..." Jack quipped. They rolled their eyes at him playfully.

The Doctor smiled and gathered Martha into his arms, holding her against his naked chest. It must have been the endorphins, but in that moment she forgave him for absolutely everything. She would have felt content to bask in the moment forever.

"I'm sorry I can't be what you want, Martha," he murmured. "I'm sorry that I'm not the man you need."

"You can't help who you are, Doctor," she replied softly. "But it's okay. Today you were exactly who I need. Even if it was only for tonight."

"'Was'... You're leaving," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," she told him. "I am. It's time."

He nodded sadly, and pulled her closer.

"I'll miss you, Doctor," She said unnecessarily.

He hugged her tighter.

"You're a star, Martha Jones."

He pulled back and took her chin in his hand, leaning in to kiss her softly. It was no a kiss between lovers, exactly, but rather one that felt like thanks and a benediction at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you to my amazing readers who commented and complimented and coaxed this final chapter out of the Writers Block Hell where it had fallen. I know it was a long time coming, but it's done now! And it never would have happened without you. Seriously. 
> 
> I adore you all!! Come find me on Tumblr (@orchisailsa) and give me a reason to be more active online! <3 <3


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